A collective installation by: Pascale Barret (BE/FR) Miriam Raggam (AT) Claire Williams (BE/FR) François Zajega (BE) Julien Deswaef (USA/BE) Annie Abrahams (NL/FR)

Opening | Vernissage: 23 / 06 / 2016 18:30 – 22:00

Departing, taking off, leaving, going, fleeing, escaping "¦ where from and where to?

The spatial earth itinerary simulator that this collective installation proposes playfully evokes the stormy weathers, the obstacles, troubles and uncertainties you might encounter on a journey. Bodies and objects move through the spaces of I don’t know where this is going and destabilise the concept of travel and destination. Contrary to on-line services such as Open Street Map or Google Maps, here cartographies curve, bend, cut across, and avoid lines of separation by connecting the dots from point of departure to destination in multiple ways.

Wars in Syria, Irak and Somalia (to list a few) have disastrous effects on people’s lives and send them on the move, streaming through Europe as well. When fleeing home is unavoidable this doesn’t mean the destination is immediately clear or that the shortest distance from A to B is the only thing to count with. Trajectories of refuge trouble the computational paradigm of geo-localisation, and the way technological infrastructures intervene in the ability to position and orient yourself.

In this installation, bodies are monitored and objects are traced. Some interactions trigger immediate sounds, images and words, while others produce less tangible effects. Satellite information, tracking tools and surveillance systems operate beyond your control, consent and knowledge. However you position yourself in this space, your movements distort the geography that is projected elsewhere.
Where are you welcome? Where is this going? These questions are urgent, but the answer might not always be there.

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I don’t know where this is going is part of Iterations, a project investigating the future of collaborative artistic practices in a technologically networked context. Iterations is an initiative of Constant, association for arts and media, and esc, medien kunst labor, Graz, Austria.

Co-ordinated by Peter Westenberg (Constant) and Reni Hofmüller (esc).

In collaboration with iMAL,center for digital cultures and technology, Brussels

Image: Miriam Raggam, CC BY-NC-SA

With the support of:
Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles Arts numériques
Cultural Department of the City of Graz, Cultural Department of Styria,
The Arts and Culture Division of the Federal Chancellery of Austria